China accused of spying on Danish defence industry

A number of experts and sources have identified the foreign state that has been spying on the Danish defence industry for years as China, according to DR Nyheder.

Among other things, the Danish defence industry delivers parts to the top-secret US fighter jet project, the F35 Joint Strike Fighter.

“We are talking about an attack that was advanced, targeted and which took place over a longer period of time,” Thomas Lund Sørensen, the director at the Centre for Cyber Security at the Ministry of Defence, told DR Nyheder.

Advanced cyber attack The espionage campaign, which began in 2008 at the latest and ended by the end of 2012, involved an extremely advanced cyber attack by professional hackers who gained access to the Danish defence companies' it systems.

Sources reveal that at least five defence companies were exposed to the espionage assault, including Denmark’s biggest weapons company, Terma.

The Chinese Embassy in Denmark has denied that China was behind any cyber espionage attacks in Denmark, but in 2009, US government officials reportedly revealed that information from the F-35 program had been compromised by an attack that allegedly originated from China and may have assisted in the development of the Chinese J-20 fighter jet.